President's Message

Todd J. Albert, MDSRS President 2017-2018

I am pleased to report to you that there are many activities taking place within the Society and in the coming months. As you may know, June is National Scoliosis Awareness Month (International Scoliosis Awareness Day is June 30) and our objective is for our membership to highlight awareness of spinal deformity and the importance of early detection and the effectiveness of braces as early non-operative care by using the results of the BrAIST Study. We would love to have every state, district and commonwealth know the efficacy of intervention and declare by proclamation their observance of June as National Scoliosis Awareness Month.

Hot Topics Articles

Ethics Corner

Ioannis Avramis, MD
Ethics & Professionalism Committee Member

The case scenario, which was presented in the last Newsletter in March, covered two ethical dilemmas. The first problem is the surgeon’s responsibility to his patient in the post-operative period and the issue of patient abandonment during the “acute care” period. The second problem is the conflict of interest and the surgeon’s financial interest of using certain spine implant inappropriately for his/her own monetary benefit.

Health Policy Committee Update

Richard M. Schwend, MD
Health Policy Committee Chair

The SRS would like to continue to update patient stories. These stories tell the true personal experience of our patients, their particular condition, and their often unique way coping and hopefully overcoming their condition. We are in need of patients with all varieties of spine deformity including syndromic, congenital, neuromuscular as well as adult deformity. These stories are submitted by the patient, but often they or their family are not aware that there is this program on the SRS website.

CME Committee Update

David H. Clements, MD
CME Committee Chair

Currently, the Scoliosis Research Society is in the process of finalizing the accreditation renewal process with the ACCME. We have submitted our narrative analysis of the overall program and supporting evidence demonstrating our compliance with the ACCME’s ever-growing criteria.

Awards & Scholarships Committee Update

M. Timothy Hresko, MD
Awards & Scholarships Committee Chair

The Awards & Scholarships Committee has been busy assessing and offering the majority of the awards offered by the SRS including the Lifetime Achievement and Walter P. Blount Humanitarian Awards as well as the Edgar G. Dawson, Eduardo R. Luque, Robert B Winter, Fikry-MENA, Global Outreach Program, and OrthoPediatrics scholarships. The geographical spread of awards was truly worldwide and the applications were numerous (165) and strong.

Education Committee Update

Suken A. Shah, MD
Education Committee Chair

The Education Committee is responsible for educational programming for the 53rd Annual Meeting & Course in Bologna and topics for the Pre-Meeting Course, Half Day Courses and Lunchtime Symposia at the 53rd Annual Meeting are complete and will be broad in scope, innovative in design and encourage international participation. We hope to see you there!

Patient Education Committee Update

Sanjeev Suratwala, MD, FACS, FAAOS
Patient Education Committee Chair

This has been an exciting year for the patient education committee. In 2017-18, our focus has been patient engagement and finding different ways to reach and educate our patients. We have utilized social media as part of our patient outreach and continue to use different tech resources to reach our patients.

Fellowship Committee Update

Youssry El Hawary, MD
Fellowship Committee Chair

The Committee thoroughly reviews Candidate, Associate and Active applications twice a year providing their recommendations to the Board of Directors (BOD) for final approval at the September and March BOD meetings. Our Fellowship continues to grow at a gradual pace with very enthusiastic and qualified individuals. We are pleased to announce our new 2018 Fellows.

Adult Spinal Deformity Committee Update

Stephen Lewis, MD, MSc, FRCSC
Adult Spinal Deformity Committee Chair

The Adult Spinal Deformity Committee is working on creating two handbooks, Adult Spinal Deformity: Sagittal Alignment and Cervical Spinal Deformity. The committee has undertaken the responsibility of creating these handbooks to provide patients and health care providers with a better understanding of their spinal condition, what treatment options are available, and to supplement the information and options provided to patients by their treating medical professionals.

Growing Spine Committee Update

James O. Sanders, MD
Growing Spine Committee Chair

Under Scott Luhmann’s leadership, the committee, in conjunction with the Adult Spinal Deformity Committee with Ram Mudiyam, developed a consensus statement on vertebral body tethering available on the SRS website. The committee is updating the e-text sections on early onset scoliosis and is beginning to evaluate shared decision making for early onset scoliosis. Following the success of last year’s webinar on casting for infantile scoliosis, the Growing Spine Committee is excited to present a webinar on June 23 at 10:00 am CDT on Early Onset Scoliosis – Challenges and Controversies.

Worldwide Course Committee Update

Benny T. Dahl, MD, PhD, DMSci
Worldwide Course Committee Chair

Since the introduction of the new strategy for the Worldwide Courses (WWC), the three activities have continued to be the traditional WWC, the Current Concept in Spine Deformity Courses (CCSD), and the Hands-On Courses (HOC).